Meat and Livestock Australia has valued the country’s beef exports at close to $17bn (€11.3bn) for the 2016/17 season. Australia exported close to 1m tonnes of beef last year, with over half of this destined for the US and Japan.

The UK will become a net importer of wheat this season, following a harvest where yields have disappointed. UK wheat production this year could be less than 15m tonnes, meaning imports will be required. For July, the UK imported 155,500t of wheat compared with exports of 16,000t in July last year.

The USDA has forecasted that Brazilian beef exports will rise by 6% to just over 1.9m tonnes in 2018. Were this to materialise, it would be the second-highest level of Brazilian beef exports on record. The USDA said better pasture conditions and low feed costs would drive beef production in Brazil.

US dairy farmers continue to pump out milk. For August, US milk production was just under 8bn litres, which is a 2% increase on the same month last year. This brings total US milk production for the first eight months of 2017 to 64bn litres, which is 1.6% ahead of last year.